Ex Parte Quirin (1942)

Facts of the Case

Richard Quirin was a member of an eight man German saboteur ring, which received training at a sabotage school near Berlin towards the beginning of World War II. These men were instructed in the use of explosives and in methods of secret writing. In 1941, these eight men traveled via a German submarine to the United States and came on land in the secrecy of night. Their instructions were to destroy U.S. war industries and facilities in exchange for payments that the German government would send to their families.

For some reason, two of the men decided to turn themselves into the FBI and gave the details of the plot up to the bureau's investigators. Subsequently, the other plotters were discovered and caught by the FBI. The men were accused of violating informal laws of international war and the Articles of War enacted by the Congress more specifically, and were detained for trail on charges of espionage, providing information to the enemy, and conspiracy. Their trials were to be held before military commissions set up for that purpose by President Franklin Roosevelt. The men wrote petitions to the Supreme Court, challenging the president's authority to set up military tribunals and asserted their right under the Constitution to a trial by jury. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

Legal Issues

Was it constitutional for the government to try these eight men by military tribunal rather than in civilian court?

Holding

The Court unanimously ruled that the military tribunals, set up by President Roosevelt, were constitutional.

Reasoning

Per Article XV in the Articles of War, the Supreme Court majority claimed that Congress had explicitly granted the executive the right to set up military commissions and that therefore the activity was constitutional. The Court then moved onto the question of whether these specific men could be tried in military courts or not.

Chief Justice Stone defined the eight men as unlawful combatants, but before he explained why these men were in fact unlawful combatants, he drew an important distinction. He writes, "The law of war draws draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful."

With those respective definitions in mind, Stone explained why the men should be classified as unlawful combatants. The Chief Justice says, "The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals."

Since the men were deemed unlawful enemy combatants and the Congress had given the President authority to create military tribunals, the Court declared that there was no constitutional basis for voiding the military trials of the eight co-conspirators.

Significance

This case established the principle that, in times of war, unlawful combatants can be tried by military courts. Such individuals do not have the right to a civil jury trial, although the decisions of the military tribunal are subject to review by civilian courts.

The Supreme Court also took painstaking steps to ensure that it issued an unanimously agreed upon opinion. The justices were concerned, for a variety of different reasons, that the Court's reputation would be besmirched by the case. Justice Jackson originally set out to write a concurring opinion, expressing his strong belief that the President had the authority to set up military tribunals regardless of congressional assent, but he eventually was coaxed into signing onto the majority opinion. He decided to issue his writing about the case, instead, in a memorandum.